FIJIAN LIFESAVER RESCUED BY "LIVING LIFEBUOY"

Story by: Aaron Kearney, ABC (28/02/2018)

Lydia Sogotubu was at an all-time low when, out of the blue, she took a phone call that would turn her life around and save the lives of untold others as well.

Lydia Sogotubu wasn’t drowning.

But she was in danger of going under.

“I was at a really low time in my life and I was looking for a job,” she recalls.

“I was worried. How am I going to pay the rent?”

She then answered an unexpected call.

Fiji’s Let’s Swim program co-ordinator Trisa Cheer was throwing a lifeline.

*A growing number of Fijian children are learning basic swimming skills. Image: ABC – Aaron Kearney*

“Out of the blue, Trisa calls me and asks me if I want to take swimming lessons and I was like ‘Ah!’,” Lydia says, beaming.

She parades along the water’s edge at Suva Olympic Pool, scanning messages on her phone, chirping instructions to staff and laughing loudly and often.

*Fiji Swimming’s Sports Partnership Co-ordinator Trisa Cheer. Image: ABC – Aaron Kearney*

Trisa, her ‘living lifebuoy’, watches on from nearby.

“I knew she was a bright kid,” Trisa says of her gamble on the girl in need.

Now the pair are part of a small army determined to give every Fijian swimming skills, in the hope of losing fewer to drowning.

After a horror year in 2012 when more than 70 people died in Fijian waters, the death toll has been steadily dropping, but between 30 and 50 people are still lost across the Pacific nation each year.

“Everyone says that they know how to swim,” Trisa says.

“When we assess them, it is usually just a doggy paddle or moving their arms in big round circles and swinging their head from side to side and they get tired very easily.

“We are trying to teach them the proper way where they can conserve their energy just in case they are out on a boat and the boat flips or they go to the beach and they get pulled out.”

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Lydia’s childhood experience is typical.

“I never had lessons when I was younger,” she says.

“My mum taught us how to swim in the river but my dad used to just take us and throw us in the water.

Australian aid’s Pacific Sports Partnerships’ swim program in Fiji is targeting primary-aged children in the hope of a cultural and generational shift in attitude and skills.

“We believe if we target them at an earlier age, we could reduce at least the drowning incidents and as they get older, they will already have the basic skills,” Trisa says.

It is hoped the skills taught to this generation of children will significantly reduce drownings.Image: ABC – Aaron Kearney

But you need only look on the pool deck to see one of the program’s most successful rescue missions.

That ‘out of the blue’ phone call has led Lydia to her true calling.

“It has made me more responsible,” she says.

“I’ve given up drinking, I’ve given up smoking.

“It’s made me more focussed.

“I know what I am doing is not a small thing. It may seem small but it goes a long way.”

A very long way, because it means saving lives that might once have been lost before the likes of Lydia and Let’s Swim started sharing lifesaving swim skills.

This story was produced by ABC International Development as part of the Pacific Sports Partnerships funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.